Meet Charlese Antoinette Jones, the lead costume designer for the recently released film “Air,” directed by Ben Affleck. As a child of the 80s and 90s, Jones grew up with a love for sneakers, and her dream job was to work in a sneaker store. In researching for “Air,” which tells the story of how Nike courted Michael Jordan in the 80s to sign a sneaker endorsement deal, Jones got to take a walk down memory lane, sourcing Nike line sheets from 40 years ago and trawling through the archives at fashion libraries. Jones was tasked with taking Nike and its employees back to the 80s, and she did it brilliantly.
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Jones has been a costume designer since 2012, working on films, ‘Nanny,’ ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody,’ ‘Judas and the Black Messiah, among others. For “Air,” she was tasked with taking Nike and its employees back to the 80s. Nike had no involvement in “Air” whatsoever, which meant Jones had to get creative to represent Nike decades before it was a multi-billion dollar corporation. She scoured the internet and sourced items from a vintage dealer’s warehouse. If she couldn’t find something, she recreated it.
The most notable Nike item seen in the film was a blue and red Nike flight jacket from 1992 worn by Affleck on the movie poster. It was initially supposed to be a reference piece to help the costume department properly recreate a vintage Nike windbreaker, but it looked so good that it made it into the film.
“I didn’t want to use that jacket originally because it wasn’t accurate. But because he was using it in the end credits, it made sense,” Jones told Complex. “Also, creatively, you don’t want to stifle things just because it’s not accurate. We have this amazing look that’s on this amazing poster.”
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Throughout “Air,” Jones also gave viewers a look at what the typical American might have been wearing to the corporate office job in the 80s. She relied on old issues of GQ and Esquire to nail the more specific details and sourced a lot of vintage Armani. And Her team stumbled upon retro 7-Eleven polos that workers would have worn in the 80s on eBay, under the radar gems from the film’s wardrobe.
When it came to dressing Jordan’s mother Deloris, Jones not only referenced photos but also memories of her own family members to dress Deloris for more intimate scenes at her home in North Carolina. “I based her look off of my knowledge as a Black woman having aunts and a grandmother who are in that age range,” says Jones. “My family’s from North Carolina, so when I would visit, that’s what my aunt would be wearing at my great-grandparents’ house.”
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Jones’ work on “Air” has received widespread praise, and it’s not hard to see why. She has managed to take the audience back to the 80s with her intricate and thoughtful costume design, a true testament to her talent and hard work.
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